by Natalie Mae
“My father sent the Wraithguard to hunt every one of the people responsible, and to remind the world what war with us would mean. There have been no more attacks. But that’s the very root of the problem.” Her blue eyes shift to me, determined and glistening. “Our enemies fear us because we seem more than human. They must see us as people. They must see us as friends.”
Suddenly I understand how much more this is to her than thrills. Sakira enjoys the parties and the challenges, yes. But her mind is on the future. On making everyone as comfortable as I am in her presence, not only to win their trust, but to show we are as capable of passion, laughter, sadness, and even mistakes as the rest of the world. To try to prevent the war by stopping the fear that fuels it.
“But they must also know we have limits,” Sakira says, rolling the map. “If peace doesn’t work, there will be war. And I will not sit back and let this happen to my people.” She plucks the toy from my hands, sliding it carefully back within its bag. “I’m sorry, Zahru. That’s why I have to have the power in the knife, too.”
I can’t think of anything to reply. The girls ready the horses, and I can only stand there, watching, with smoke curling my nose and the ghost of the puppet’s warmth like a weight in my palm.
* * *
The heat is blistering.
Distracted as I was when Sakira showed me the map, I remember her route cutting through a corner of the Barren, and I have no doubt we’ve moved into it now. There are not even small rocks here. Just thousands of kilometers of deceptively smooth hills that radiate Numet’s energy like a mirror, the sand hissing as it billows beneath the horses’ legs. We don’t press the horses faster than a walk, but we don’t pause to rest them, either.
But just when I’m thinking the speech about Quadra has transformed Sakira into a responsible, quest-minded queen from whom I have no hope of escape, the princess declares that reliving depressing news makes her hungry, and out comes the food. Flatbreads with bean dip, dried strips of pork; some kind of candied fruit Alette bought at the first checkpoint. It’s practically enough for a banquet, though I know our supply isn’t nearly so infinite. Sakira even brings out the flasks as I’d hoped she would, but now that freeing Maia is out of the question, I decline. It only reminds me that yet another of my escape plans has failed, not to mention that if I do come across Jet, he’s going to heavily judge me if he discovers me riding drunk. Again.
Jet. My insides twist with worry, and I panic now that something truly has gone wrong. I hope he’s only behind because they’ve had to rest more than usual, and not because he’s having trouble recovering. I close my eyes and breathe out, assuring myself that Marcus and Melia are taking good care of him. I will get another chance to see him. I will get a chance to apologize.
Because this time, my escape plan will revolve around the only person I have yet to trust: myself.
I know I can’t best Sakira with magic or brute force. I know the Obedience spell on my arm will be a problem. But I also know we have to stop at the second checkpoint before we reach the caves—and Jet knows that, too. I can leave clues for him. When we reach the Speaker, I’ll push the bounds of the Obedience spell. If Sakira doesn’t specify how long I have to stay close to her, I might be able to sneak away while they’re talking, or get a message to the Speaker that I’m not a real sacrifice and need help. If that fails, I’ll try for the Illesa and stun them all. And if Jet isn’t there by the time all this has passed . . .
Then I’ll take my chances on my own. Even an outpost in the middle of the Barren has travelers and trade caravans.
It’s long past time to go home.
* * *
Sakira has planned her entire crowning ceremony and selected half her officials by the time Numet sinks beneath the horizon. She marks me with Obedience every few hours, and I stay quiet and solemn, as though I’ve given in. I don’t know if the act fools her. She’s the one who claimed her brothers always underestimated her, but now that her win seems assured, she’s hardly paying attention to me. Her head is full of sweet cakes and party silks and handsome suitors, and when she’s not looking, I can’t help but smile at the irony of it.
We spend another too-short night in the tent, and I dream of boys with silver for eyes and knives for hands. Day six of the Crossing begins, and passes the same as yesterday. The dunes shift like shadows, the sand whispering in rare breezes and slithering beneath the horses’ feet. Numet charges across the sky. The stars wink. The spells that fill the waterskins fade, and our food supply dwindles.
But just when I’m fretting I won’t survive long enough to put my plan into play, we wake the morning of day seven to see a shimmering cluster of palm trees and squat, square houses in the distance. The second checkpoint. Even the horses get excited about the sight of civilization, lifting their heads and prancing forward.
Shade, they think to one another. Food. Rest.
Sakira doesn’t even pause to check her appearance. She pulls me into the buckskin’s saddle and lets the mare charge.
* * *
I’ve seen many building-like mirages in the last two days, and even some that looked like caravans and riders, so I’m relieved that as we draw closer, the shops grow bigger and more solid and the haze of heat thins. It’s a small town by the breadth of it, perhaps even smaller than Atera, and I find myself searching for a stable on its perimeter, for even the smallest similarity to cling to. It’s certainly not as busy as Atera. No travelers mill about the well at the outskirts or come out with their hands shading their eyes to see us. Then again, when it’s this hot out, I imagine everyone who can will stay inside.
“I can’t believe we’re actually going to meet the Speaker,” Alette says as we slow outside the well. “The Speaker, who’s advised every single team since the first Crossing. How did your father even find them?”
“You don’t find the Speaker. They find you,” Sakira says mysteriously. “But actually, after my fara announced the Crossing, they volunteered.”
“They?” I ask. “I thought there was only one Speaker.”
“The Speaker is neither a man nor a woman,” Alette says. “They’re more.”
“Oh, right,” I say, nodding.
“You’d have met them eventually,” Sakira says. “They always attend a new Mestrah’s coronation.”
Alette fidgets. “Do you think I can ask them a question?”
“I don’t know.” Sakira shifts behind me. “They’re mainly here to advise us. My brothers and me, I mean. But if there’s time, you probably can. Why? What do you want to ask?”
“I . . . there’s just this thing I need to know. And I thought, because they’re thousands of years old . . .”
“I told you, you’re overworrying. It doesn’t mean anything that the gods are ignoring some of your prayers. All priests go unanswered.”
“I know, but they’re only answering me in regards to this race. Nothing else. The last priest they ignored died within the year.”
“He was also as old as dirt and talked to statues.”
“He wasn’t that old—”
I don’t hear the rest of her reply. A cold that has nothing to do with my cloak sinks in as I study the quiet buildings, the empty street, and the crumbling well, where a bucket dangles from a broken spindle. Half its slats are missing. It clanks against the spindle’s post with a hollow, rhythmic thud.
“Sakira . . .” Alette says.
Sand billows into the buried street. The nearest house, which I could have sworn looked white and shining from a distance, is actually the first floor of something larger, with its roof and upper floor eroded away. Palm trees sway over broken fences and broken jars. The haunting echo of someone’s long-forgotten wind chime sends beetles down my spine.
“I don’t think there are supplies here,” I say.
Or people. Or crowds.
The second checkpoint is a ghos
t town.
XXVI
I don’t understand. That was the best plan I’ve ever made. It was realistic, it accounted for many different variables, and it didn’t rely on anyone specific to make it happen. Except, I’m realizing, it did rely on someone being here. I don’t know what to do if literally no people populate the town. There’s no food here, no water, and certainly no one who can help me secure a ride home.
This isn’t right. After everything I’ve been through, after everything I’ve learned . . .
“Is this the right place?” Kita asks.
“Of course it is.” Sakira pushes off behind me, sandals scuffing the sand. “We’ve been following the Southern Viper. This is the only outpost between here and the caves.”
“Do you think people lived here before?” Alette asks, sliding to the ground. “You know, for the original Crossings?”
Sakira doesn’t answer. Her confidence has vanished. She lowers the hood of her cooling cloak as she moves forward between buildings, their mudbrick sides bleached and crumbling. Maybe she’s realizing, like me, that nothing goes the way it’s supposed to. That we ate the last of the rations last night. That all the alcohol and spellwork and daring feats in the world won’t help us survive if she’s led us to the wrong place.
“Sakira—” Kita starts.
“I know,” Sakira snaps. She glares over her shoulder. “Someone has to be here. Someone has to know if we check in.”
She stalks into the sand-blown streets, looking left and right, not bothering to give me a single command. Alette hurries after her.
And then I’m alone with Kita and the horses.
I could take the buckskin and go. Kita would probably even let me. Even if she followed, what would she do? She’s not trained in combat, she doesn’t have a stunning sword, and the buckskin is the fastest of the horses. She’d have to give up before she lost sight of the checkpoint. I could take the compass. Sakira just revealed what constellation she’s been following, and I could use it to reverse direction.
But I have no food.
And if I leave, I fear the last of Sakira’s resolve will break. She’ll press her team back into the desert to find me, with two horses and no compass. She’ll rely on Alette’s prayers to save them, unless Alette’s prayers don’t, and then I don’t know what will happen. She might get desperate like Kasta. And who better to trade years off her life for their survival than poor, sweet Kita, who let me go?
Thus leaving two little children in Juvel to visit her tomb each moon, wondering if it’s their fault she died so early.
“Adel?” Kita says.
I sigh. “I wish you were a worse person, Kita.”
She blinks. “Sorry?”
“You should be.” I swing my leg over the saddle and drop to the ground, not looking at her as I start after the princess. “You’re making my life very difficult.”
“I—but . . .” She hurries after me, her Healer’s tunic flapping in the wind. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. That’s the problem.”
A pause. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”
“I don’t know, either,” I admit. A new gust of wind pushes against us, as if saying go back, go back, and I have to grip my hood to keep it in place. The heat slinks under my cloak like fingers, like the breath of something monstrous. “This place is awful.”
“It’s a strange place for a checkpoint,” Kita agrees. “But I guess it’s just another test. We were only given coordinates for these, with no idea of what to expect. The first checkpoint must have favored the popular heirs, with the crowd able to help us and hold Jet. This must favor the resourceful ones.”
The resourceful ones. Like Kasta. I’m almost to the point where I can think of him without my stomach twisting, but I press the pain away and try to see this place as he would. He wouldn’t have been discouraged by its emptiness. He would use it, and he would find what was out of place.
“There’s nothing here,” Sakira says, emerging from between eroded walls. “How can there be nothing here?”
“You’ve checked all the buildings?” Kita asks.
“There’s only this set of shops and a handful of houses.” Her fist clenches on her scribing brush, the wood bending dangerously. The tip drips black. I have a feeling she’s tried more than one Reveal spell and is using far too much ink to do it. “No one’s been here in a very long time. There are no footprints, no wheel marks, no wagons. It doesn’t make sense.”
Kita fidgets, her voice gentle. “Aera, are you sure—”
“This is the checkpoint!” Sakira says, turning on her. “I’m not dull, Kita. I know how to use a compass.” Her glare sharpens. “This is it.”
She sets her jaw and marches past us without another word. Kita sighs and starts after her. Leaving me with the sun and the sand.
And the ghost of Kasta, bending to the ruined street, scrutinizing the quiet buildings. What would he be looking for? Not a way out. Not a scroll to sign that would prove he’d checked in. Nor would he care about food or supplies, because the first thing he was going to do when he got here was—
The Speaker. That’s it. He’d be looking for a person. A wise, magical person who wouldn’t want to be out in this wind, in this heat.
But where would a whole person hide? When animals seek shelter—
My heart jerks. The animals. We’ve made a lot of noise tromping through the ruins, but even in the Barren, they must be here. A lizard or a family of mice, making the most of the sheltered walls and sparse grass. Even if we haven’t seen them, they always see us.
They certainly would have noticed the Speaker’s arrival.
“Look for Valen’s symbol,” Sakira says, shoving a scroll into my hands. Her grip tightens on my shoulder as she adds, “Once you find it, come back to me.”
I glare at her as she pushes past, cursing her magic. But maybe all this sun exposure is making me stubborn, because I’m still convinced I’m going to find a way around it. If I can find the entrance to the Speaker’s house first, maybe I can get far enough away from Sakira that I can’t come back. And—as I consider the silent buildings and their possible inhabitants—maybe this is one instance my magic is actually more useful than hers.
I open the crumpled scroll.
I can’t read, but I find Valen’s angled face near the bottom and trace the looping coils of the rattlesnake beside him. The god of fortune and fate. Of course. I roll the scroll in my hand and wait quietly where I am, listening, holding my breath. Only the sound of dribbling sand and Sakira’s complaints come to my ears. But I stay perfectly still, and when Sakira has moved farther away and the wind lulls, I hear it.
Food? Food. Food, food, food.
A light voice, inquisitive and fast. Some kind of rodent, probably. Or maybe a snake. I edge toward the crumbling structure on my left, careful to keep my steps silent.
It comes again, hardly a whisper above the wind.
Food. Food! Safe? Safe food?
I peer into the ruined building. It has no roof, but its mudbrick walls are large enough to have housed many people at once. Judging by the eroded shelves carved into the far wall, it was probably a tavern. In the corner, where a cluster of desert grass grows in the shade, a mouse noses around the wheat-like seeds dripping from the grasses’ tips.
It sees me and darts back into the wall.
“Wait!” I whisper.
Fear tinges the air, and I press back with reassurance.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” I whisper. “I’m looking for something. I wondered if you’d seen it.”
Silence. It’s too afraid to even think. I inhale, suppressing every thread of impatience jolting through me, and reach out again, this time with joy.
“I’m looking for a secret,” I say.
Its fear ebbs. Mice are quite fond of secrets; a
t least, the ones in Fara’s barn are always bragging about how they’ve hidden something or other. Curiosity flickers in the air like fire bugs. I finger one of the pearls sewn around the neck of Melia’s tunic and jerk it free.
“I’ll trade you,” I whisper. “One secret for another.”
Carefully, I move toward the grasses and leave the shining pearl at their base. Then I step back, almost to the doorway, and wait.
A small brown nose wiggles in the hole in the wall, then a tiny head pokes into the sun.
Secret? it thinks. Secret?
“Trade,” I say.
It hesitates a moment more, then dashes out, grabs the pearl in its mouth, and darts back into the hole. Pretty. Mine. Pretty.
Somewhere across the buildings, Sakira curses. No doubt she’s trying other spells to find the symbol and they’re not working well. I can hear Alette comforting her. Kita must be elsewhere, performing her own search, but a quick glance tells me she’s nowhere near.
This can’t take much longer. This is faster than I like to push, but I have to take the risk.
“I’m looking for a snake,” I say.
Fear cracks the air like lightning. I hastily rip another pearl from my tunic and hold it out.
“A secret one,” I say. “Not a real one. It looks like this.”
Slowly, I unfurl the scroll until Valen’s symbol is visible. I leave the second pearl at the base of the grass and the scroll behind it.
“Have you seen it?” I whisper.
Whiskers twitch in the hole in the wall. The mouse pokes its head out, just enough to see the scroll.
Seen, it thinks. Yes.
“Where?” I ask, struggling to hold back my nerves.
The mouse considers me and disappears again.
More, it says.
I . . . have no idea what that means. There’s more than one symbol? More than one snake? “More what?”